Scott Horton Interviews Joshua Frank
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Joshua Frank, contributor to Antiwar.com, Counterpunch and DissidentVoice, and co-editor (with Jeffery St. Clair) of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, discusses the continuing need for a political realignment against empire, the dangers associated with Obama’s stated intentions of saving it while many former antiwar voices are diluted by love for the new emperor.
MP3 here. (38:57)
Joshua Frank is a contributor to Antiwar.com, Counterpunch and DissidentVoice, and co-editor (with Jeffery St. Clair) of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland.
MCayrow
January 18th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Welcome back, Scott.
Bill Anderson
January 18th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Welcome back…..or, more to the point, thanks for coming back! I missed your shows, your guests, and your incisive questioning. Also, welcome to California. It’s kind of hard to get used to, I would imagine (as a native I can’t say for sure) but today Sunday was, at least out my way (40 miles west of downtown L.A.) a spectacular day, where from my motorcycle hurtling through the Santa Monica mountains I could see at least four of the offshore Islands , that we call the channel islands. Not any prettier than the hill country, but nice.
Pardon the chamber of commerce talk….anyway I hope things work out for you. There should be plenty to talk about with the new guy in office in a couple days.
Best regards,
Bill Anderson
(not the Professor)
Elmer
January 18th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Yay! You’re back!
IP
January 19th, 2009 at 2:04 am
HORAY!
Omar
January 19th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Welcome back Scott – your show is a weekly staple of mine.
Please put together some interviews concerning the situation in Gaza, it would be much appreciated.
Ken Biegel
January 19th, 2009 at 6:12 am
I’m very pleased to be able to enjoy your interviews again. As Omar stated, please provide information about Gaza. I’m so sick and tired of the mainstream babble. Amy Goodman is about the only one out there trying to give a more balanced perspective.
Jan 19 News- Obama, Left/Right, Int’l Peace/War, Ahmadinejad on Honest Money « Liberty Forged
January 19th, 2009 at 8:32 am
[...] Frank talks with Scott Horton about ’shedding the labels’ of left and right and finding the priorities that will enable new alliances to forge ahead and hold the lines against [...]
Lawrence
January 19th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Welcome back, Scott…and to California. Regarding the Clintonian wing of the Democratic Party with which Obama has surrounded himself: your (and your guest’s) concern about their interventionist policies is right on the money. Don’t forget that the Bush-wack end of the Republican Party has — on Rush Limbaugh’s show — justified its mass-murder program in Afghanistan and Iraq on the example shown by Clinton in the Balkans. This kind of finger-pointing in an effort to justify an evil policy — without any attempt to end bad policies — is the low level to which partisan/brand politics has devolved. There’s no effort to remove bad policies, only to justify them in the name of the evil examples shown by one’s opponents — and then dutifully imitated. It’s enough to drive a person bonkers.
Claus-Erik Hamle
January 19th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
16 US Intelligence Agencies say that Iran IS NOT pursuing nuclear weapons. The UN inspectors in Iran say the same thing. THERE´S ZERO EVIDENCE THAT IRAN IS PURSUING NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Thus the UN sanctions are illegal. Nevertheless, Obama recently said that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. So, IS OBAMA MAD ??? If he goes to war with Iran for no other reason than MADNESS and Israeli propaganda (they learned something from Dr Goebbels), the West will be back in 1932 economically as some experts have pointed out. IS OBAMA MAD ???
Anonymous
January 19th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Glad you’re back on the air. !!
Courtney
January 19th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Great interivew! Thanks Scott!
Alex
January 19th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Aint gonna happen Omar.
Cliff
January 19th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Feels damn good to have you back bro. I was looking forward to hearing all about your secret plans, but I guess I can wait.
Your discussion about the left/right political construct was right on the money. Its turned into a really useful idealogical tool, to keep everyone fixated on the “other tribe” as the source of all problems, obscuring the fact that the dominant societal elite have largely plundered the nation’s wealth.
I have to say though, I think your guest went a bit astray of the mark in his assessment of the president-elect. The idea that Obama could do something along the lines of, say, attacking Iran is pretty misguided. Even Bush was forced to reject the idea, ultimately, because it’s an insane proposition. Obama wouldn’t dare, even if he didn’t owe his election to the anti-war movement (as pliant as it may be).
Just as many of Obama’s more enraptured supporters irrationally project onto him all their deepest desires, I think many folks (including many of my own basic intellectual persuasion) are also far too eager to irrationally project onto him their darkest fears. What Ive seen and heard recently suggests that Obama does intend to follow through on a (at least somewhat) meaningful withdrawal from Iraq, and I have begun to see a fracturing of the supposed “consensus” regarding a surge in Afghanistan. Theres no question that Obama has been forced to subordinate himself to the national security establishment, and you can never underestimate the poisonous effects of the enormous wealth that seeks to influence the president’s decision making, yet at the same time you cant so easily dismiss the fact that Obama developed in a background that was opposed to many of those same forces. At one time he protested against apartheid in south africa, heard sermons denouncing american foreign policy, befriended the very good palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi, etc. In my opinion it is not in our interests to disown Obama before he has even taken his first official action. Especially when at the moment he is basically trying to engage all views in a conversation about how our policy should be headed. Obviously I don’t expect he will make a 180 degree change in our foreign policy, which is practically impossible, but I do expect he will make a change for the better, and how much better will depend on just how successfully we exert our pressure.
Ultimately I think a return to Clinton-era policies is not possible. America is a superpower in decline, economically and thus strategically. Financially we are nearly broken. There is an extent to which the political/media establishment realizes the unsustainability of the current course, and will accept the leader’s decision to terminate certain misguided policies. But again, just how much depends on us. We may be right, but we are also a minority position. So we’ve got to be loud. And we should only denounce Obama according to what he does, not what we speculate he might do.
Alex
January 20th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Two countries, just two, the US and Israel, they are the source of almost all conflict, mass murder, child molestation, rape, sodomy, pornography, obesity, greed, hey wait a moment, Iran was right, together they are the worlds greatest satan. The proliferation of all that has ruined humanity originates from one or both of these depravity driven lands. The rest of us must detach ourselves from these broken humans they are irredeemable
KMD
January 20th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Great to have you back!
Lester Ness
January 21st, 2009 at 2:06 am
Glad you’re back, Scott, and with an interesting guest. Save your money, vacation in Kunming!
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
Ideology, Polarization, Spain and Jeffrey Friedman’s New Work « Entitled to an Opinion
January 21st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] Frank and Scott Horton discuss the radical left and right’s agreement as to the Obama administration’s (thus far) [...]
swan
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:12 am
Thanks all.
Robin
January 26th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Sir, Why you forgot to stop or voice for GENOCIDE in Sri Lanka. Even the Times reported, the internal war in Sri Lanka is more severe than war in Afghanistan. A hawai like country with intensity more than Afghanistan, you can imagine. It is a 50 years of ethnic conflict and just during Bush Administration, it was painted as “war on terror”. As you may well know Genocide Prevention Project report highlighted “GENOCIDE RED ALERT” for 8 countries including Sudan and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was ranked as “FAILED STATE” for their worst attrocities against their minority Tamils for consecutive years. It is also the worst state for Journalists and NGOs.
NO JOURNALIST ALLOWED, NO NGOs, NO UN BY MILITARY. MILITARY IS CONSISTS OF 100% SINHALA MAJORITY WHO HAS KILLED 80, 000 TAMIL MINORITY.
I kindly request you to bring this genocide to light and public domain. ONLY THAT CAN SAVE A RACE BEING WIPED OUT. IMAGE, GAZA bombing was 22 days. IN SRI LANKA THE SAME INTENSITY WAR HAPPENING FOR THE LAST 3 YEARS.
Thank you
Robin
Attack the System » Blog Archive » Updated News Digest January 25, 2009
February 14th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
[...] Getting Our Priorities Straight Joshua Frank interviewed by Scott Horton [...]